s of education, and (3) the social principles of education.
This does not mean that the sequence must be as enumerated here. In
some places that is the sequence followed, in some other places the
social principles are studied first. As a matter of fact, all three
phases must be studied together to a considerable extent. Probably a
purely logical arrangement would place the social phases first, but it
is almost futile to attempt to present them effectively until
something of the biological and psychological laws are first
established. Again, the student in beginning the formal study of
education is already in possession of a vast body of facts concerning
society and the relation of education to it, so that reference can be
advantageously made in connection with the study of biological and
psychological laws of education. Then the social principles and
applications can be more thoroughly and scientifically considered in
the light of the other phases.

In administering a college course in the theory of education the great
desideratum is to try to formulate a body of knowledge which will
give the undergraduate students an idea of the meaning of education
and its problems and processes. In so far as possible it is desirable
to present material which in a certain sense will be practical.
Inasmuch as the majority of undergraduates who study education in a
college department intend to go into the practical work of teaching,
it is important to fortify them, as well as possible in the brief time
which they devote to the subject, concerning the best means of
securing definite results in education. The majority are not so much
interested in the abstract science or the philosophy of education as
they are in its practical problems. All courses in education should
seek to deal with fundamental principles and not dole out dogmatic
statements of practical means and devices, but at the same time no
principles should be considered with which the student cannot see some
relation to the educative processes. They are not primarily concerned
with the place of education among the sciences or with ontological and
teleological meanings of education or of its laws.

=Academic recognition of the introductory course=

The course in elementary educational theory should be on a par with a
course in principles of physics, one in principles of biology,
principles of psychology, principles of political science, etc. A
course in the principles of any